Fight Night at the Thaphae Muay Thai Stadium

14 December, 2009Monday

We'd already seen the Thaphae Muay Thai Stadium during the day when it was deserted and we bought tickets to come back for an evening of Muay Thai action. I thought a whole night of fights might end up repetitive, but eventually found it to be surprisingly fun!

There were seven fights throughout the night which varied in weight divisions and an addition fight involving a pretty funny, blindfolded four man match up. The initial fights were probably the least interesting, consisting of the lower weight divisions and low impact action from young teenagers.

106 lb Lady Fight

Then there was a lady fight match up between two pouting pugilists.

100 lb Super Kid Fight

This was followed by the lightest weight division and a fight between two titchy fighters. Here's the smaller of the two, and I have to say, that I've never seen such a tiny kid look so cute yet so fearsome in a ring.

You can see the little dudes in action in the following clip. It's amazing how they're both able to dish it out and take it at such a young age. I kept expecting one of them to burst out crying at any point, but of course it never came.

Blindfolded Fight

After the amazing super kid fight, was the billed "Special Fight" which turned out to be between four men who were all blindfolded. It was supremely hilarious to watch as they each punched thin air until they connected and then attempted to continue their assault on their moving target.

Watch below as the blindfolded fighters stumble around the ring.

Heavy weight Fights

The last two fights were heavy weight fights, one being an uninteresting international match up between a visiting boxer from Canada and a Thai local. It was interesting however to see how arrogant the Thai boxer was, who then ended up winning when the Canadian conceded defeat through injury.

I got a sense that local Thai training simply made the boxers into more hard-ass fighters! This didn't help the patriotic tourists in the crowd (tourists were the majority) who were lured into betting on the Canadian by the grinning touts that hustled through the arena.

The other heavy weight match was between two local fighters who looked like they were cut from stone and fearsome in the ring. Here are some shots of them going through their pre-fight ritual.

Catch some of them action between the two local heavy weights in the video clip below. After a few rounds and both looking battered, the guy in the blue shorts picked up an injury, conceding defeat.